Perhaps you’ve noticed over the past several weeks on my sidebar a link to a website that was in the works. This morning I checked the link and noticed they’re getting a lot closer. We’re not yet able to download anything, but we are given a glimpse of the good things to come. Just like the image at left, the light is slowly beginning to trickle in. We need a restrained, incremental approach of so much great material, because we may just be blinded by the light, otherwise.
Okay, enough of the imagery. I’ve been eagerly awaiting my opportunity to introduce you to the teaching ministry of my friend, Dr. Thomas Rufus Browning (I hope he doesn’t mind his middle name getting publicity). Dr. Browning is the father of my other friend, Gage Browning, who had heretofore been operating the blog, “Experimental Calvinism.”
Now what I’m about to say is not my merely borrowing some Madison Avenue marketing slogan, it was not focus-group tested, it’s the unvarnished truth . . .
The ministry of
Dr. Tom Browning changed my life!
But it was more indirect than it was direct. A few years ago, I had lots of contact with several members of his old church, who had the distinct privilege of being used by God to perform brain surgery on my four-point Arminian, dispensational-premillennial, King James Only, Independent Fundamental Baptist convictions.
I had looked into Calvinism on my own off and on for years before running into these guys. Michael Horton of Modern Reformation Magazine and The White Horse Inn Radio Show, was the first actual Calvinist I’d ever heard explain in detail what the Bible teaches about the doctrines of grace and their positive effect on the believer’s evangelism, but that was before MR or WHI, Horton was running his old group called CURE (Christians United for Reformation). I ordered CURE’s newsletter, and read it as much as I could, but, being a teenager at the time, the material was a little over my head. I knew this was really cool stuff, but my attention was eventually diverted back to other things. But the seeds were planted.
Years after that, I had a Presbyterian friend in the army with whom I formed quite a bond, and he worked on me non-stop, like a good Calvinist should. I gained a lot of respect for Calvinists at that time, though I was at that time resisting what I was learning. But I knew Calvinist lay people knew their Bibles and they knew theology, which was more than I’d ever seen in my IFB environment, except among the preachers to a greater or lesser degree. But the seeds were watered.
Then a few years after that, God opened the door to work with a print shop full of Calvinist bull dogs who went to Tom Browning’s church! I would walk in at 7:30 (okay, more like 8:00 or 8:30 on most days) and those bulldogs would latch onto my ankle and mercilessly not let go until the end of the work day. It was okay, because they already knew arguing theology was my favorite sport. But of course, being good bosses, they didn’t latch onto my ankle until I walked up to them and stuck it out to them, pulled up my pant leg and whistled, if you will! One of my bosses had a veritable library of White Horse Inn tapes and he generously loaned them to me all the while prophesying, “Resistance is futile; you will be assimilated!” Late in the process, Gage joined the staff and entered the group brain surgery being performed on me. After a few years of employment at what I call “The Reformation Station,” I was at long last assimilated! God gave the increase. To him alone be the glory!
My life has not been the same, since the light of the Reformation began to pierce my darkness. God is at work in my family and church, God’s truth is marching on!
Dear readers, my advice to you is to get yourself over to “Post Tenebras Lux,” partake of the teaching ministry of Dr. Tom Browning and you’ll see what adventures (not Mis-adventures) a real Captain Headknowledge can take you on!
is about to take the blogosphere by storm!
(this was an unsolicited, shameless plug for Post Tenebras Lux. Absolutely no money changed hands–however, greater faith in the sovereignty of God did change hands, and this is my way of passing it on to you!)
The Misadventures of Captain Headknowledge 
With an intro like that, who cares for the siblime? ah popcorn and coca cola flashes between frames?
went there and clicked, and nothing.
maybe I need to learn to type as well as read?
Is Gage well?
In the first paragraph I wrote that the site was in the works, and now they are “a lot closer.” It remains a work in progress, but now we are able to see what it is that is in progress.
I said it must come incrementally, and so it is. Just put the link on your favorites list and check back periodically. It may not be long, and you won’t be dissatisfied when it arrives!
Yes, I put the link on over at Gage’s.
I am impatient and learning patience so I ignored you quotes.
Sometimes we can learn from our own shortcomings. Sometimes not! :):(
I share your anticipation!
[…] favorite preacher.” Learn more about Dr. Browning and his ministry of preaching and teaching here and here. John Chitty (left) with Dr. Thomas R. […]
[…] was the fascinating Trinity Hymnal (c. 1990). Back when I worked at what I endearingly call “The Reformation Station,” the print shop where God cornered me after years of on-again, off-again confrontation by the […]